The Illusion of Owning
by Inomuiro
Summary: Oneshot. An unexpected visit in The Devil's Nest prompts some musings. Greed and Kimbley centered, not yaoi unless you want to look at it that way. Mentions of animalabuse.


While I was writing my thesis... a cat entered the Devil's Nest and this drabbly fic ensued XD

**Title:** The Illusion of Owning  
**Fandom:** Full Metal Alchemist anime  
**Characters:** Kimbley and Greed centered, not yaoi unless you want to see it that way  
**Rating:** PG  
**Warnings&A/N:** Mentions of cat-abuse (not the one entering). If this is a prelude to Kimbley's betrayal and joining back the military, or if this will lead things towards a different direction, is for you to decide.

The cat was grey, with white stripes all over his back and sides. It had probably sneaked in from the little window at the road level, the one with the broken glass they had to fix before opening the bar. It padded inside the Devil's Nest main hall, looking around at the few people inside with half-hearted interest. It blatantly ignored the hand Dorochet was tentatively reaching him with. Instead, it walked to the counter, tail straight up, and looked up to the man sitting there, elbow leaning on the wood, like it was expecting something. Kimbley stared down at it.

Martel laughed at Dorochet's outraged expression, the chimera believing not the cat had preferred the annoying alchemist over him

"Maybe you smell too canine for it!"

"But…"

"It's just like cats do." Kimbley said. "They go looking for the attention of who is ignoring them. They do not behave like dogs, that roll over to the first guy who scratch their neck…"

He turned his attention back to the whiskey glass in his hand and found himself staring right into the cat's eyes. The alchemist lifted an eyebrow, then he smirked, and put the glass right in front of the animal's little nose. The cat stretched out to sniff it, then it backed away at the bad alcohol smell, sat back and proceeded to lick his paw somehow indignantly.

"Not something for you." Kimbley chuckled. He put down the glass and reached out slowly, palm up. The cat stopped his movements, paw still up, and looked at him suspiciously. The man started scratching it under its chin, and after a moment the cat relaxed, closing his eyes and stretching at the pleasurable touch.

"For ignoring them, you got a thing for dealing with cats."

Kimbley glanced at the man on the other side of the counter, and grimaced at the mockful tone.

"Got one back at my home, when I was a kid. Always liked them better than dogs, I told it."

It had been the smallest of the already numerous litter. The mother left him out of her shelter, on the grass, to die by starvation or to get eaten by one of the males of the colony. At the time, to the boy those had seemed perfectly good reasons to pick it, keep it warm under his shirt and bugger his older sister till she showed him how to feed it with a dropper. Kimbley had been eight.

"I see." Greed put down his own glass and leant towards Kimbley, hands spread on the wooden surface. Kimbley held his look, his hand moving to scratch the cat on the side of its head, near its ear, eliciting the soft rumble.

"It was my first success in making bombs out of living materials, by the way." Kimbley couldn't hold the smirk, feeling on the back of his head the shocked stare he expected from at least one chimera. Martel just snickered, like she wasn't expecting less from him.

It had been the cat's bad luck, getting in the way when the teenager was such in a tantrum, the still tentative alchemical circles drawn with ink on his palms. What had he been angry at, that time? He couldn't remember… his father, and life in general, probably. Still, it couldn't have been totally its bad day, since it got away only without most of its tail and some burnt stripes on its fur, to join the countless cat-fight scars it already had.

Seemingly un-touched, Greed reached to stroke the grey cat's back, feeling it arch under his palm. A faint alchemical fizz, and he turned his finger to hard points. The cat seemed to find the scratching even more pleasurable, since it turned over, forgetting about Kimbley, and gave all his attention and purr-making to the homunculus. Kimbley took his glass and drank the remaining whiskey.

"How did your cat died?" The alchemist stared, surprised by Greed's question.

"Rolled over by a car. She was eleven, got too slow." He remembered the letter from his sister telling him that. He read it in his tent, on the travel to reach the Ishbalean front. The war had just started.

"Eleven. Quite an achievement for a cat, especially with the kind of stress having an owner like you would provide her…" Greed mused.

"You can't own cats. They just come, get what they want, be it a scratch or some food or warm, then they go away." Kimbley looked at the way the cat was stretching, luxuriously, giving all in the man's touch. "They give you the illusion you own them, like now, they give you the illusion they need you. But if you fail just once and not give them what they want they turn to someone else with no regrets. Selfish bitches they are."

"Mmmh."

They heard the door clattering. Dorochet got close, a dish of meat bits from the kitchen in his hand. He clearly wasn't buying the cat preferring the psychotic alchemist over him.

The cat considered the matter for a second, then it squirmed away from Greed's touch and jumped on the floor, stroking his whole body against the now happy smiling chimera's legs. Martel sighed at her companion's naivety.

Kimbley glanced at Greed in a "told you that" fashion, to find the homunculus staring intently at him.

"What?" he asked, vaguely annoyed.

"What do you want?"

Kimbley gave an harsh laugh, lifting his glass again to sip, remembering only a second too late there were only ice cubes in it. He looked at Greed defiantly.

"Already told you that."

"The fireworks again," Greed nodded. "And then?"

"Don't know. Don't care."

"Didn't you want freedom, when you were in prison? Or you would have settled to be a military tool, if they were the ones to give you the chance to set the world on fire again?"

Kimbley reached for the bottle. Greed got it faster, and proceeded to fill the alchemist's glass, then he took a glomp of whiskey directly from the bottle.

"I wasn't looking for just the freedom to choose my new master, like someone else here was, if you're asking."

"I know. You're more… feline than behaving like that, don't you? But you were looking for someone who can give you what you want. Since you aren't strong enough to get it on your own yet."

Kimbley didn't retort to it. It was true, he was far from having his previous strenght, his body still the one of a man kept in chains in the dark and badly fed for years, his mind still not reacquainted to work at that world speed. For the moment.

"Yes, I could settle for that. But you…" He gave him a mocking smirk. "Your greedness is not that deep if you can settle for the illusion of owning that a cat can give."

Greed's grin didn't falter. He kept on staring in the golden eyes.

"What did that cat do after you hurt her?"

Kimbley shrugged. "She ran away. Came back the morning after, she already had got in a fight with some dog. I fixed her."

On the other side of the room, Martel had finally given up showing not interested and was cuddling the cat too. It seemed the new-born Devil's Nest had found a mascotte.

Greed didn't speak. Finally Kimbley gave him an annoyed look.

"There are also stupid cats, you know?"

FIN


End file.
